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Anyone know why DW changed this? Was it costing them money? It just seems like they’re giving a lot of people the chance not to renew their memberships. I thought most businesses operated like Readers’ Digest - once you subscribe they just keep debiting your account until you tell them otherwise.

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There's been a lot of backlash towards dreamworld over this move. I can understand people feel like they've been done a disservice, but they need to understand that not everything lasts forever, and at the end of the day, the park is a business, in it to make money. By the sounds of things, the membership price hadn't increased for a while, so the 2014-15 prices were a little outdated.

I had a bit of a think on this the other day, and the whiners and whingers just don't make sense to me...

Most of those complaining are saying they can't afford to pay for the passes in one hit - and several of them have said that they would have preferred a small increase in the price over canning them entirely... By my calculations:

They’ve offered 50% off a season pass, so it’s around $69 adult and $59 child

So $256 for a family of four.

Afterpay makes it $64 a fortnight, which doesn’t need to be started until mid September when the current memberships will run out.

A family of four would currently pay $48 a month or thereabouts.

Afterpay would see you pay it off by mid November at $64 per fortnight. (Sept15-Nov15 Approx)

Between August 1 and mid November, that same family would have paid $192 on memberships...

So they’ve only gotta come up with an extra $64... which is one extra fortnight (which from now until mid November is probably something they could stretch, especially since they know about it an extra fortnight in advance)

Given many are saying they’d have been ok with a slight increase - it’s only another $8 per fortnight from now to mid November - which works out to be only an extra $2 per person - which isn't much different to the 'small increase'

What this relies on is for those families to have the self control and budgetary restraint to bank that money away now, to be used later. From mid-november until the expiry of the pass in June, there's 16 fortnights. If those families were able to put away their $56 (48+8) per month from December to June, they'd have $392 saved for next year's renewal. Ok - so that isn't quite enough to buy the next annual pass, so ok, they miss out on two months in 2019... BUT - but at $56 a month, they could have it by the end of August (if they don't just use their tax refunds) or they could use afterpay, to get their passes on July 1 - and by the end of August, they'd have it all paid off without missing any time in the park....

Assuming the park is still operating then - saving their $56 per month from September gives them $560 in 2020, enough for the family of four at current prices, but with an extra $60 wiggle room in case of price increases... at which point they end up with a surplus in the following years if they keep going down the same path as they will be able to save from July 1 for next year's passes - $672 in the following year means they can splurge!

Bottom line - those self entitled brats who think the park owes them something because they've kept their membership for a few years, and now want to cry and say they can't afford to go to the park because they can't afford to pay the huge lump sum ticket prices - either suck it up and deal with it that not everything can be served to you on a silver platter - or sit down with a calculator (take off your shoes and socks if you need to) and do the math to realise that the park has given you a fucking good deal that is almost on par with what you had, albeit not spread out across the year, its barely costing you any extra.

And if they don't have the control to bank that money away, or if they find themselves having to spend it on bills and urgent repairs (or concert tickets, flights, hotel rooms and cocktails), then they only have themselves to blame when their pass expires and they can't visit their favourite park anymore. It isn't the parks fault... it's theirs.

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You don't see Telstra Bigpond continuing to provide Dial Up service just because of Jim down the road who has had his 36.6k modem connected continuously since the 1996 olympics.

Bad example, because Telstra actually does still provide dial-up for Jim (and will even still sell it in some cases), but I know what you're saying. I'm not even disagreeing, just pointing out the former characterization.

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Probably a poor business decision. Businesses get pricing wrong all the time and just straight taking away the current option is poor form really. Leave people on their current plan and then introduce new options is generally best practice. Even Telstra generally does this, they don't just axe your old plan-they let you remain on it and introduce different ones for new customers that you can switch to.

Would it really hurt them to let those that are currently members continue to pay for another year? Yeah maybe DebitSuccess transaction costs are too high for them (maybe 20% at a guess vs 4% transaction costs on any other ticket). But the amount of revenue they're going to lose offering this deal is very high is a significant percentage.

Let's say 5% of those who pay in July cancel every month until the end of next June, so you only have 95% paying in August and 45% by next June you'd still get an average of $77.50 per current member which I think is a low estimate for revenue. At best here they're getting $69.50 per member assuming 100% conversion. If they get 80% conversion which I think would be high it is $55.60 and at 70% it is $48.65.

So probably a $30-$40 revenue loss per member before you subtract out some visits too. If less than 10,000 members maybe this is ok. If there's more than 30,000 it seems just a good way of pissing people off and refusing revenue that you would otherwise get.

People could also be annoyed because Dreamworld offered the same passes cheaper a couple of months ago. But if you only signed up to be a member in February and had a year contract, you're not going to buy another pass for $40 for the last 4 months of your year. Or maybe you intend to cancel at the end of December, so you only had to pay another $50 for your year vs the $69.50 they now want.

Of course those that want to can their membership do benefit from this. So for some people this is a better deal but certainly not for all and I don't see what Dreamworld really gain by doing this either-they're definitely getting less revenue and visits because of this.

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The prices being offered to members ($69 adults $59 kids) is the cheapest promo rate they’ve offered in the last 12 months.

I get it might be annoying, and I’d probably be a bit pissed if VTP follows suit one day, but we keep harping on about how we are not happy with how the park is run, well then we can complain when they clearly try to implement different strategies to change things.

Cant complain about the changes when you were complaining about the status quo. Well you can, but that just makes you a whinging tool....

Bad example, because Telstra actually does still provide dial-up for Jim (and will even still sell it in some cases), but I know what you're saying. I'm not even disagreeing, just pointing out the former characterization.

Telstra actually stopped retailing dial-up services on and from 23 February 2015.

Probably a poor business decision. Businesses get pricing wrong all the time and just straight taking away the current option is poor form really. Leave people on their current plan and then introduce new options is generally best practice. Even Telstra generally does this, they don't just axe your old plan-they let you remain on it and introduce different ones for new customers that you can switch to.

Would it really hurt them to let those that are currently members continue to pay for another year? Yeah maybe DebitSuccess transaction costs are too high for them (maybe 20% at a guess vs 4% transaction costs on any other ticket). But the amount of revenue they're going to lose offering this deal is very high is a significant percentage.

People could also be annoyed because Dreamworld offered the same passes cheaper a couple of months ago. But if you only signed up to be a member in February and had a year contract, you're not going to buy another pass for $40 for the last 4 months of your year. Or maybe you intend to cancel at the end of December, so you only had to pay another $50 for your year vs the $69.50 they now want.

Oh, that was a really nice attempt at an analysis. The only issue is you didn't do your research.

Dreamworld haven't offered pay by the month memberships for a while now. Anyone with a 12 month contract was well and truly past that minimum period, so everyone still holding a membership is a month-to-month casual user.

They did leave people on their current 'plan' for some time, and introduced new options. They also offered really good prices, incentives and renewal discounts to convert people.

They haven't "just axed" the old plan - it's run for quite some time. But - like dialup, the new technology (or service provider) makes it just not cost effective to continue to run the old system any longer, and it's time to retire it.

Would it really hurt them? Yes it would - the external service provider fees may it uneconomical without an economy of scale - as more members resign or upgrade to alternative tickets, the few remaining memberships aren't worthwhile... so your assumption of costs, and losses doesn't make out.

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Afterpay is only avaliable for season passes, not single, 3 or 7 day passes and annual passes. Just thought I'd mention because I've seen a lot of people complaing on facebook about it. Dreamworld said they are planning to realse all tickets on afterpay.